Upon hearing that the New York Journal had published his obituary in 1897, Mark Twain is said to have written to his brother-in-law, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” In the case of THQ? Unfortunately, not so much. By now you’ve likely heard the news of THQ’s ongoing financial issues, their bankruptcy filing last month and their rather dizzying spiral through the bankruptcy process, culminating last week in the auctioning off of their most prized assets to their former competitors. Well loved and successful franchises like Saints Row and Company of Heroes along with renowned developers Volition and Relic now have new homes. For all intents and purposes THQ is no more.

Back in 1998 when Half Life hit PCs for the first time, it was unlike most games released at the time, where most other games were telling their stories through cut scenes or had very little story at all, Valve aimed to break this mold and reinvent first person action games by ensuring that the player was always in control of the main protagonist Gordon Freeman and that the story was told through scripted scenes, in addition there were no bosses to speak of, as story and interaction were the main drivers for this game.

Carol Shaw was a pioneering video game designer back in the glory days of the first Atari home systems. She created River Raid, a superb game on the 2600. Vintage Computing and Gaming did an extended interview with her recently, which is definitely worth a look.